The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-09-24
SUMMER DAYS IN PARIS.
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

The weather was hot: we were tired and did not care to go to the theatres, if any of them were open The pleasantest hours were those of our afternoon drive ill the Champs Elysecs and the Bois de Boulogne-or the "Boulogne Woods" as our Amer ican taiior's wife of tine old time called the favorite place for driving. In passing the Place de Ia Concorde, two objects in especial attracted my at tention-the obelisk, which was lying when l left it, in the great scow which brought it from the Nile, and the statue of Strasbourg, all covered with wreaths and flags. How like children these Parisians do act: crying "A Berlin! Berlin" and when Ber- lin comes to Paris, and Strasbour9 goes back to her old proprietors, in- instead of taking it quietly, making all this parade of patriotic symbols, the display of which belongs to victory rather than to defeat.
 was surprised to find the trees ill the Bois de Boulognc so well grown l had an idea that they had been largely sacrificed in the time of the siege. Among the objects which de- serve special mention are the shriek- ing parrots and other birds and the yelping dogs in the grounds of the Society of Acclimatization, out of the range of which the visitor will be glad to get as soon as possible. A fountain visited by newly married | Nlac and fha1,, q,
 taurant near by, where the bridal party drink the health of the newly married pair, was an object of curi- osity An unsteadiness of gait was obvious in some of the feastcrs. At one point in the middle Of the road Il m@nad was tlinging her arms about and shrieking as if she were just es- capped from a madhouse. But the drive in the Bois was what made Paris tolcrable. There were few fine equi-
 pages, and few distinguished looking people in the carriages, but there were quiet groups by the wayside, seeming happy enough; and now and then a pretty face or a wonderful
 bonnet gave variety to the somewhat bourgeois character of the procession of tiacres.
 suppose l ought to form no opinion at all about the aspect of
 Paris, any more than I should an oyster ill month without an ? in it.
 We were neither of us in the best
 mood for sightseeing, and Paris was
 not sitting up for company in fact,
 she was 'not at home." Remembering
 all this, must say that the whole ap-
 pearance of the city was dull and
 dreary. London out of season is still
 full of life; Paris out of season looks
 vacuous and torpid. The recollection
 of the sorrow, the humiliation, the shame and the agony she had passed through since l left her way on the
 arm of the Citizen King, with his old r{Hdl0 over her, rose before me sadly. ominously, as looked upon the high board fence which surrounded the ruins of the Tuileries I can under
 stand the impulse which led the red caps to make wreck of this grand old historical building. "Pull down the
 nest" they said, "and the birds will not come back" But I shudder when l think what "the red fool fury of , the Seine" has done and is believed , capable of doing. ! think nothing
 has profoundly impressed me as the story of the precautions taken to pre-
 serve the Venus of Milo from the , brutal hands of the mob. A little | more violent access of fury, little more fiery declamations, few more
 bottles of rjR b(eU and the gallery of , the Louvre, with ail its treasures oi art, compared with which the crown
 jewels just sold are but petty pebbles,
 the market price of which fairly
 enough expresses their value-much more rather than their true value 9 that noble gallery, with it's master : pieces from the hands of Greek sculp- 9 tors and Italian painters, would have : been changed in single night to a r heap of blackened stones and a pile of : smoking cinders.
 7 love to think that now that the t people have, or at least think they s have, the power in their own hands, l, they will outgrow this form of mad {, ness, which is almost entitled to the
 name of a Parisian endemic. Every
 thing looked peaceful and stupid enough during the week I passed in Paris. But among all the fossils : which Cuvier found in the Parisian basin, nothing was more monotonous
 than the pOisSGrdeS of the old Revolu-
 tion, or the petro1euseS of the recent Commune, and l fear that the breed is not extinct.-Adontic Monthly.